Japan has to stop giving 100-year-olds special awards because there are just too many of them

Japanese people often live to 100, but the award they get for
doing so is dying out at age 52.

In 1963, when the Japanese government first started
taking Seniors' Day (September 15) to honor people who lived
past their 100th birthdays, only 153 people qualified for the
award: a silver sake dish known as
a sakazuki.

Today, that number is 29,357.

In 2014, all those super-survivors cost the country more than $2
million, and the costs will keep going up.

By 2018, the government estimates it will have nearly 40,000
centenarians, according to the
Japan Times. While still short of the U.S., which boasts
more than 50,000 centenarians, that proportion is the
highest in the world (Japan has a population of 127 million,
while the U.S. has 319 million people).